560 
responsible positions in scientific, manufacturing, and official life ; 
and these men will all acknowledge the benefit conferred upon 
them by the training they received when competing for the scho- 
larship, and whilst occupied for the first time in their lives in 
carrying out an investigation on some original subject. 
On the model of our Dalton Chemical Scholarship, an im- 
portant physiological scholarship has lately been founded in this 
College by Mr. Robert Platt ; the conditions of tenure involve 
the prosecution of an original investigation in physiology ; and it 
is to be hoped and expected that this scholarship will do as 
much to stimulate the study of physiology amongst us as the 
Dalton has certainly done in the case of chemistry. The estab- 
lishment of similar scholarships in the branches of physics and 
biology is much to be desired, and benefactions made for these 
special purposes will assuredly prove of the greatest value. 
It is unnecessary for me to point out the direct applications 
which the knowledge and experience gained in the labora- 
tory receive in the arts and manufactures dependent upon 
chemical science. These everyone can see for himself. The 
ordinary routine work of the alkali maker, the dyer, the brewer, 
the calico printer, calls immediately for chemical knowledge, and 
manufacturers who do not yet see the value of the training 
afforded by original experimental investigation, are ready enough 
to appreciate chemical knowledge if it can show them that their 
drugs are adulterated or their water.impure. 
Concerning the exact mode by which encouragement should 
be given in this country to original research, opinions may differ. 
One proposal has lately been made by the distinguished presi- 
dent of the British Association (Prof. A. W. Williamson), in his 
able address at Bradford, which it behoves all interested in the 
progress of the country carefully to consider. Without attempt- 
ing to discuss the details of this or other schemes, it may be well 
to point out thore general features of the subject upon which 
these proposals are based. 
In the first place, then, we shall agree that the measures which 
have to be taken must be systematic, must apply to the country 
at large, and must include all classes. What we need is the 
development of the latent intellectual resources of the country as 
regards science, the means of sifting out from the great mass of 
the people those golden grains of genius which now too often are 
lost amongst the sands of mediocrity. This can only be fully 
accomplished by a system extending from the lowest primary 
schools up to the highest educational establishments in the land, 
and therefore almost necessitates the action of Government. 
But whilst believing that a national system is needed in order 
that the potential scientific energy of the country shall become 
active, I for one should most strongly object to the establish- 
ment of a complete system of State education, One of our 
greatest safeguards and sources of national strength has been and 
is the freedom trom Government control which our educational, 
municipal, and local institutions have always enjoyed ; and the 
evils of a uniform State system_ as existing in France (which is 
such that the Minister for Education remarked with pride, that 
at a given moment the classes in all the Lycees in France were 
engaged in reading the same chapter in Czesar’s Commentaries) 
need only be felt to be deplored. 
Secondly, it is clear that in order to be able to select from 
amongst the people those whose mental and physical powers fit 
them for ultimately advancing science themselves, the rudiments 
of a scientific training must be much more widely diffused than 
is at present the case. This can only be slowly accomplished ; 
the methods of teaching science are only beginning to be under- 
stood, and, unfortunately, in school teaching the introduction of 
a scientific subject has too often been looked upon more as an 
amusement than as a study requiring as much or more attention 
and exactitude than the older subjects, one which when properly 
taught acts to quite as great an extent as a mental discipline. 
Science teachers have yet to be trained, and a system of intro- 
ducing elementary science as disciplinary teaching into primary 
andsecondaryschoolshas yet tobemadegeneral. Atthe sametime 
new institutions have to be founded in which the higher branches 
of the various sciences are taught and criginal research en- 
couraged, and into which youths of conspicuous merit must be 
drafted, whilst existing colleges and universities have to be 
modified to suit the requirements of the time. These institutions 
must contain laboratories, not only for teaching purposes, but 
suited for scientific research, and the professors must take in a 
certain number of advanced students to work on original in- 
vestigation. This is indeed, as Sir Benjamin Brodie points 
out’ in his evidence before the commission, an educational 
NATURE 
1 
[ Oct. 30, 1873 
function of the most important character ; because here scien- 
tific education is carri-d out to its end, and if this is not 
done, you stop short of the most important part of all in © 
scientific education, for the perfection of science as a means of — 
education is seen only in scientific inquiry. The pupils thus 
trained eventually pursue science as their main business in life, 
and become in their time teachers and professors of their subject. 
Thus by degrees the profession of the investigating teacher will — 
become recognised as one in which the ablest of our youths may 
obtain reward and recognition, as well as satisfaction and delight, 
and thus the scientific power of the country will be vastly in- 
creased. 
Concerning the ennobling nature of original scientific inquiry 
it is needless for me to say much, for although I should be the 
last to contend that men of science are free from the foibles and — 
weakness common to all mankind, I think it stands to reason 
that the habits of mind which an investigator must cherish, are 
such as must raise him above the petty struggles of ordinary ex- 
istence, and must, for a time at least, lift him into an atmosphere 
free from the cloud and smoke which too often darken the usual 
current of men’s lives. In order to give you an idea in what 
original research consists, and to point out to you the interests 
attaching to an inquiry, the practical applications of which seem 
as far distant as those of a newly-discovered planetoid, I will 
for a few moments draw your attention to a case of the kind 
with which I happen to be familiar. Amongst the sixty-three 
different elements of which the earth, so far as we know, is 
made up, there are many which have been found only in the 
most minute quantity. Indeed, in the list of elements sus- 
pended on the wall, you will notice that a large number out 
of the sixty-three are marked as rare. A few only of these sub- 
stances are employed in the arts and manufactures, or are known 
to play any part in the economy of nature ; the rest are rarities 
of interest at present only to the scientific chemist. It would, 
however, be presumptuous on our part were we to assume that 
the existence of these bodies is a matter of no moment, for we 
are constantly learning that substances hitherto supposed to be 
useless are of the most vital importance. Hence itis obviously 
our duty to get to know all we can about the properties of each, 
even the rarest, of these elementary bodies, and especially about 
their relation to, and mode of action on, the other elements, 
It is clear, too, that as long as our knowledge of the properties 
of any one of these elementary bodies is inaccurate, or if mis- 
taken views regarding any one have arisen, our science must 
suffer in completeness. For just as an error made in the base- 
ment of a house throws the upper storeys wrong, so a mistake 
concerning the size and shape of the foundation blocks of our 
science may render the whole chemical superstructure faulty. 
In 1830 the great Berzelius fully examined a new elementary 
body termed vanadium, the existence of which had been pre- 
viously discovered by his countryman Sefstrom. Having most 
carefully ascertained the remarkable properties of this new sub- 
stance and its compounds with the other elements, Berzelius gave 
to vanadium and its compounds a certain chemical position and — 
place amongst the other elements. Thus to the compound of 
vanadium and oxygen containing the largest proportion of the 
latter element, and called vanadic acid, he assigned the formula 
V.O 3, meaning thereby, in the atomic language of our great 
townsman Dalton, that two indivisible particles or atoms of the 
metal are combined with three indivisible particles or atoms of 
oxygen ; and these views, enforced by experiments of the most 
unimpeachable character, were for years universally adopted by 
chemists. ; 
In 1858 a fact was observed by the German chemist, Ram- 
melsberg, with regard to the crystalline form of the best known 
mineral containing vanadium which exhibited Berzelius’s conclu- 
sions in a new light. It had long been known that substances 
which have an analogous chemical composition are found to cry- 
stallise in anidentical form. Thus the different alums containing 
alumina, oxide of iron, oxide of chromium, oxide of ma’ ese, 
all crystallise in octahedra; and the oxides contained in these 
alums have all an analogous composition ; that is, the relations 
between the number of atoms of metal and of oxygen in each — 
case is identical, Now, Rammelsberg found that the crystalline — 
form of a mineral contained yanadic acid, and lead was identical 
with another mineral containing phosphoric acid and lead, 
Hence we should expect to find that the oxide of vanadium, 
termed vanadic acid, and the oxide of phosphorus, called phos- 
phoric acid, possess an analogous chemical constitution. Such, — 
however, was found not to be the case. Phosphoric acid is well — 
